The present invention relates to a food processing method and more particularly to a method for producing uniformly shaped rippled chip-type products from a formulated dough sheet. Since the food product is formed from a dough sheet, the chip-type products may be formulated from a variety of farinaceous or proteinaceous materials to produce gustatory delights appealing to a wide range of palates. The preferred chip-type products, however, are formulated from potato dough sheets to produce unique, uniformly shaped potato chips.
Relatively recent technical innovations in the food processing art have given the consumer a superior chip-type alternative to conventional potato chips made from slices of raw potatoes. These innovations have produced chip-type food products which have a uniform color, texture and shape. For example, commonly-assigned copending patent application of Liepa, Ser. No. 62,175, filed Aug. 7, 1970, and entitled "Potato Chip Products and Process for Making Same," incorporated herein by reference, discloses a process for preparing formulated potato chips which comprises mixing dehydrated cooked potatoes with water to form a dough, forming the dough into shaped pieces, and frying the pieces until they are crisp.
The above-mentioned Liepa process may be used advantageously in conjunction with the apparatus and methods of MacKendrick, U.S. Pat. No. 3,520,248, issued July 14, 1970, and entitled "Chip Frying Machine;" Liepa, U.S. Pat. No. 3,576,647, issued Apr. 27, 1971, entitled "Preparation of Chip-Type Produt;" Liepa, U.S. Pat. No. 3,608,474, issued Sept. 28, 1971, entitled "Apparatus for Preparing Chip-Type Produts;" and Liepa, U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,466, issued Dec. 7, 1971, entitled "Molding Device for Preparing Chip-type Produts," all four patents incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, to prepare uniformly shaped chip-type products by employing a plurality of shaped, mating mold members which shape a dough section during frying. These patents disclose that the mating mold members may be of any desired shape, depending upon the desired shape of the final product.
However, it may not be desirable to use these methods for the preparation of chip-type food products having rippled surfaces, for brevity, hereinafter referred to as "rippled chips." Specifically, rippled mating mold members such as are contemplated in the above-mentioned MacKendrick or Liepa apparatus patents tend to be expensive and difficult to maintain. Thus, alternate methods of forming rippled chips from dough sheets would be desirable.
Another known method for forming rippled chips involves the use of a pair of corrugated rollers to form a dough sheet with rippled surfaces, which rippled dough sheet is then further processed to produce rippled chips. For example, such an apparatus is disclosed in Unilever Ltd., British Pat. No. 1,331,042, published Sept. 19, 1973, and entitled "Production of Foodstuffs" which utilizes a pair of corrugated rollers to impress a rippled configuration on opposing surfaces of raw dough slices.
However, the use of a pair of corrugated mill rolls presents additional processing problems. For instance, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that a doctor blade is often used to scrape, or peel, a dough sheet from a roller to insure a clean removal of the sheet from the roller surface. If such a doctor blade is used in attempting to peel a rippled dough sheet from a corrugated mill roll, the doctor blade serves only to cut off the surface ridges, rather than to insure a clean removal of the dough sheet from the roller. Further, if such a rippled dough sheet is used in the practice of any of the above-mentioned MacKendrick or Liepa apparatus patents, additional processing disadvantages result. For example, in a preferred practice of these patents, a partial vacuum suction is used to transfer the individual dough sections from the cutting member to an awaiting shaped mating mold member. It will be appreciated that if this same preferred technique is attempted in transferring dough sections having rippled surfaces, air will readily be sucked in between the ripples so that no partial vacuum will be created sufficient to hold a dough section for transfer. If a higher vacuum is applied to the raw dough sections in an attempt to overcome this problem, then the high vacuum draws the raw dough partially into the holes causing unsightly distortions in the rippled surface. Thus, only a dough section having a smooth surface can be satisfactorily transferred from the cutting member to an awaiting mating mold member using the preferred vacuum technique described in the above-mentioned patents.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel process for preparing rippled chip-type products from a formulated dough sheet.
It is a further object of the present invention to produce such rippled chips from a formulated dough sheet by a simple and economic process.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a process for preparing rippled chip-type products from a formulated dough sheet with improved handling of cut dough pieces.
These and other objects of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art from a reading of the present disclosure with the appended claims.